1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cleaning apparatus for cleaning an object by utilizing an ultrasonic wave.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally, an ultrasonic cleaning apparatus, as shown in FIG. 1, is provided with an ultrasonic cleaning tank 2 having an ultrasonic vibrator 3, a vapor cleaning tank 4 having a heater 5 at its inner lower portion, and a rinse cleaning tank 6 disposed between the ultrasonic cleaning tank 2 and the vapor cleaning tank 4. The conventional ultrasonic cleaning apparatus is arranged such that the cleaning liquid in the rinse cleaning tank 6 is made to flow over into the ultrasonic cleaning tank 2 and the cleaning liquid in the ultrasonic cleaning tank 2 is made to flow over into the vapor cleaning tank 4. The polluted cleaning liquid in the vapor cleaning tank 4 is led into a distilling device 9, provided separately from the cleaning device 1, to be distilled therein. The distilled cleaning liquid is made to flow back into the cleaning device 1 to replenish the cleaning liquid supply with clean cleaning liquid. An object to be cleaned is moved from the ultrasonic cleaning tank 2 to the vapor cleaning tank 4 through the rinse cleaning tank 6.
In the conventional ultrasonic cleaning apparatus, however, there is a problem in that the polluted cleaning liquid in the ultrasonic cleaning tank 2, in which the first cleaning step of an object is flow over into the vapor cleaning tank 4 in which further cleaning of the object is performed, and then the polluted cleaning liquid is heated in the vapor cleaning tank 4. Thus, not only the cleaning liquid in the ultrasonic cleaning tank 2 but the impurities in the cleaning liquid in the vapor cleaning tank 4 are vaporized together. The impurities attach onto the object to be cleaned which lowers the cleaning ability of the apparatus and make it necessary to replace the cleaning liquid after a very short time.